Symposium: Untangling Roots of Identity

Organized by the History of Art Majors’ Society, this symposium will focus on hair as an artistic medium and mediator of individual self-expression, communal conformity, religious identity, and gender distinctions and ambiguity. Scheduled presentations by Cornell faculty members will address hair’s place in contemporary African American culture, “magical hair” in postcolonial India, proper and polluting body hair in early modern Europe, the materiality and sensuality of hair in Southeast Asia, and hair as artistic subject.